Being the amazing, true-to-life adventures and (very likely) misadventures of a writer who seeks to take his education, activism and seemingly boundless energy to North Minneapolis, (NoMi) to help with a process of turning a rapidly revitalizing neighborhood into something approaching Urban Utopia. I am here to be near my child. From 02/08 to 06/15 this blog pushed free speech to the envelope, so others could take heart and speak unafraid. Email me at hoffjohnw@gmail.com

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Word reached me about a week ago from a source that former JACC Executive Director Jerry Moore had been hired by the UROC program at U of M; the nice (but obviously naive) folks bringing North Minneapolis that big, expensive, rather slowly-delivered project at the former Penn-Plymouth shopping center. Another credible source made some calls and confirmed firsthand this was, in fact, the case. Jerry Moore is now--among many other things--a gopher.

My U of M gopher blood boils with shame. THE SHAME!!!!!!!!

Jerry Moore--who has been a plaintiff in a lawsuit against JACC, and was fired from his executive director position for misconduct, (fistfight, cough cough) is nothing if not a controversial figure in the Jordan Neighborhood...
So when word reached certain neighborhood movers and shakers about Jerry being hired by UROC, and being involved with some kind of "research" about mortgage issues in North Minneapolis, consternation was followed by seething anger. Repeated and specific evidence in Hennepin County District Court shows Jerry Moore was involved with a high-profile fraudulent mortgage at 1564 Hillside Ave. N. The collective judgment of decent people in the Jordan Neighborhood--"decent" being defined as "not actively involved in mortgage fraud"--is that Jerry Moore is the last person who should be working on this kind of task and WHAT THE HELL was U of M thinking by hiring him?

Even assuming (as lawyers say) "arguendo" that Jerry Moore has received a bad rap over 1564 Hillside Ave. N., the problem remains that current JACC leadership will have nothing to do with Jerry Moore, and the Jordan Neighborhood makes up a big part of North Minneapolis. It's not hard to picture situations where the UROC people attempt to engage the leadership of Jordan, but all the "Jordanites" will want to talk about is, "Why the hell did you hire Jerry Moore, and when will you be getting rid of him? Get rid of him and we will talk."

That's the word I'm getting from neighborhood leadership. In fact, my reason for delaying posting about this matter was because I was prevailed upon to avoid airing this dirty laundry until there was a chance, behind the scenes, to call some leaders at U of M and fix this mess. With the matter still pretty much the same as it was a week ago, I was contacted and told to please, please blog about this matter. So: Jerry Moore is working for UROC, and UROC has just lost major cred with North Minneapolis leadership. (The ones not involved with mortgage fraud, anyway, which clearly doesn't include all the self-declared leadership)

In fact, some are going so far as to say UROC has never had the creditability of CURA, which is another program at U of M which has been working with neighborhood issues for a long time, very successfully, though often with a low profile. The question being asked in this time of budget cuts is "Why is there a UROC at all? Why not just have things done under CURA, a program with a proven track record which would never, in a hundred years, pull this kind of stupid bulls***t?"

I'll name names. Apparently it was Makeda Zulu-Gillespie and Irma McClaren (unsure if I'm spelling that right) who hired Jerry Moore. Makeda, avid JNS readers will remember, gave an impassioned speech during Kenya McKnight's ill-fated challenge to the DFL endorsement where she essentially praised people for being clueless.

I've been at community events with these two, and "clueless" is the absolute best word to describe their relationship to north Minneapolis.

Let's track down the contact information for these people, post it, and have a coordinated effort to remove Jerry Moore and restore credibility to the partnership.

And I am compelled to remind folks that since the U is a public institution, it is YOUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS that are now paying his salary.

This may well spell the failure of UROC, and Jerry's leadership has done, to a large extent, for the Northside Marketing Task Force.

Thanks for posting this. I have viewed UROC as potentially a huge benefit for North Minneapolis. I now see that this is not possible. Like other organizations supposedly here to help the African American community, they are either blind or determined to "help" those who are doing the most damage.

This email is to give you a heads up on a pending situation, that could possibly turn into a public relations nightmare for the University of Minnesota/Urban Research and Outreach Center.

On last week, allegedly - Mr. Jerry Moore and Mike Kestner were released from the Northside Marketing Task Force board of directors. This comes on the heels of several different scenarios involving Mr. Moore and his relationship with Tynessia Snoddy who is under indictment for mortgage fraud as reported on KSTP-TV - (Read it here: http://kstp.com/news/stories/S795057.shtml?cat=1).

Mr. Moore did a deal that remains in question where he received a $5000 check for "new windows" at 1564 Hillside Avenue North. Mr. Moore put no new windows in said property. This was a conflict of interest, at the time he was JACC's executive director. More importantly - he was not a "window repairman" either.

From the court documents that surfaced in the Larry Maxwell trail with an invoice for $5000 to JL Moore Consulting and the current Jordan Area Community Council court case, I feel there could have been a error in judgment on the part of the UROC in collaborating with Mr. Moore.

There is enough public information to support the claims made in this email, I hope that the U of M's corrective action is swift and covert to avoid more media distribution of this information as it pertains to UROC, the U of M and the connection with Mr. Moore which would be "he gets a check" from the University of Minnesota to discuss Mortgage Foreclosures and other information in the community.

The current story out is here: http://adventuresofjohnnynorthside.blogspot.com/2009/06/former-jacc-executive-director-jerry.html, the Independent Business News Network will consider covering this on Tuesday, but since our media group is trying to do business with the U of M, I will remain cordial and diplomatic - for now.

Dr. McClaurin, I would be glad to forward you names of community stakeholders that are qualified to be topic specific for anything UROC needs to discuss in the community. I would also offer you the services of the public relations branch of V-Media Marketing for any message distribution you might see fit.

Jerry Moore is already in the system (see below), meaning that he's already been hired. The good news, however, may be that it appears that his appointment is "temp/casual," meaning that it should be reversible.

I agree that we should be writing to the Board of Regents, since Irma and Makeda are the ones who created this fictitious job for him. I would like to know, in this time when the University is facing 1200 additional layoffs, who created this position, who wrote the job description, and how it is that a "research" position doesn't require a college education.

I think that this kind of nepotism is something that not only Jerry, but also Makeda and Irma should lose their jobs over.

The University has be "bluffed" by everyone from Al McFarlane to Jerry Moore. The problem is, the people that they should be listening to are to "business minded" and will ask questions about "process." Jerry, Al and the others (UROC has hired two other "community members" rumored to be Jerry McAfee and Randy Staten - not confirmed) if this is the case, yes we have to call the U of M and set up a meeting. I would be willing to call Dr. Jones but Irma will not be in town until after July 7, 2009.

To the poster right above Don Allen: I am more likely to "sic 'em" than "sick em" but I hear you loud and clear.

By making this completely boneheaded decision to hire Jerry Moore, the U comes off as naive and inexperienced in the ways of North Minneapolis politics. They hired the first con man who talks a good line and (it appears) has some allies with UROC.

If they hired McAfee and Staten - then shouldn't they also have the contact info listed on the staff page like is posted here for JMoore.

It's becoming obvious of why some of the northside community put up such a huge, big fat stinky stink a few years ago when this whole U of M partnership came about - and some community members had their panties in a bunch and were protesting and demonstrating and taking signatures for a petition.

Through that big fuss over trying to keep the U from coming here - they have now created themselves a position of power that they can continue to milk money and funds to line their own pockets.

for better or worse, i e-mailed darcy pohland about this issue. one thing that the university will occasionally respond to is negative press in the mainstream media. the issue is that the university is demonstrating lower standards for this northside project than they would for any other project.

the fact that the u was willing to hire makeda (someone who was very ineffective at nrrc, even by nrrc standards), much less jerry, indicates that they really aren't invested in the quality of this project, and are just looking for the path of least resistance.

it's our job to make sure that hiring actual professionals to administer this project IS the path of least resistance.

Just to back up Don Allen. The NMTF did not have enough votes to removed Jerry and Mike, so they have to be carried to the July meeting which means that these two A**holes don't have the common decency to resign and let things be.

Mike Kastner is an cold manipulative man and is a sad human being. All he says is, "I'll get a lawyer and sue." Jerry, well enough about stupidity...

Both of these guys need a new life. The NMTF has done NOTHING at all. Just close the thing our put it in the Minneapolis Urban League, were we can expect nothing.

After two years of staring at that stupid typo and being unable to change it, because this blog post was in court, I have finally been able to fix the messed up "t" which was up too close to the previous word.

At first I thought I'd capitalize the "t" and let it stand as an incomplete (but perfectly expressive) sentence, but after much reflection I decided it was better to just move the "t" over a space and insert a semi-colon.